This issue contains estimates from the 2014 Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours (EEH) which was conducted with respect to the last pay period on or before 16 May 2014.

The EEH survey is conducted every two years and designed to provide detailed statistics on the composition and distribution of employee earnings, hours paid for and the methods used to set employees' pay. Information is collected from a sample of employers about characteristics of both the employers (such as industry and sector) and their employees (such as occupation, type of employee, and method of setting pay). This information is used to provide comprehensive statistics about earnings and hours paid for, for various groups of employees, classified by for example industry, occupation or pay setting method.

A number of changes were introduced in May 2014 to data items collected about employees. These included:

The item Adult/Junior employee was modified, and further categories included. The new item 'rate of pay' has the following categories: adult rate; junior rate; apprentice or trainee rate; and disability rate;

The actual age of the employees was collected for the first time in 2014. Prior to this, the information on age was collected only as 'under 18 years', '18 years and under 21 years' and '21 years and over'; and

Hours paid for data were requested for all employees, including Upper level managers and Owner managers of incorporated enterprises (collectively referred to as Managerial employees). Prior to this, hours paid for data was collected only for non-managerial employees. Despite this change, hours paid for could not be provided for Managerial employees where there was no relationship between earnings and hours. As a result, estimates of hours paid for and hourly cash earnings have only been produced for employees with a link between earnings and hours.

ROUNDING

Estimates of average earnings shown in the tables and data cubes are rounded to the nearest 10 cents and those of average weekly hours paid for are rounded to the first decimal place. Where figures have been rounded, discrepancies may occur between sums of the component items and totals.

FEATURE ARTICLE

In addition to the information presented in this e-magazine, a feature article examining people paid an Apprentice or trainee or Disability rate of pay will be added to this issue on 19 February 2015.

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